


If You’ve Got a Lantern Hold It High

by starfishstar



Series: Be the Light in My Lantern [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-Deathly Hallows, Remus' influence is much felt, Tonks' too, werewolf original characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-02 15:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11512560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starfishstar/pseuds/starfishstar
Summary: Three years after the war, a stranger arrives at Hogwarts with a letter addressed to Minerva McGonagall by the familiar hand of an old friend. Before the summer is through, the contents of the letter will bring together several lives that might otherwise never have touched.





	1. A Visitor at Hogwarts

**Author's Note:**

> Set a few years after “[Raise Your Lantern High](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5417678/chapters/12517565)” (not a sequel, since that story is complete – more of a “bonus extra”!) but it also works as a standalone if you haven’t read that story. 
> 
> “Raise Your Lantern High” followed Remus and Tonks throughout HBP; the two original characters in this story, Serena and her daughter Joy (also known by her werewolf name, River), are characters Remus got to know during his time living with a werewolf pack that year. I’ll include some more background at the bottom of chapter 1, if you’d like to know more, but again, I don’t think you’ll be confused if you just dive in!
> 
> (Note for those coming here from “Raise Your Lantern High”: the character was known as Joy in that story, because it was from Remus’ perspective and he thought in human names; here you’ll see her as River, because it’s from her own perspective. And yet I’ve used Serena’s human name here, because she’s among humans and thus using her human name …And yes, I do realise I made this complicated for myself when I created the construct of werewolf vs. human names!)
> 
> My great thanks to [gilpin25](http://gilpin25.livejournal.com/) who provided such a thoughtful beta-read of this story. (And Brit-picking, too!) I appreciate it so much.

Minerva McGonagall set aside the curricula scrolls she was reviewing for the upcoming school year and looked up to the sight of Hagrid filling her doorframe.

He ducked his head apologetically. “Sorry to bother yeh, professor, but I’ve got a visitor here asking ter speak ter yeh directly. She’s got a letter addressed ter yeh, ma’am, she said.”

That was intriguing; the visitor must have stated her case persuasively, if protective Hagrid had been willing to show her directly up to the headmistress’ office.

Minerva nodded. “All right, show her in, Hagrid.”

Hagrid backed through the door, revealing the woman standing behind him. Then he gave a polite nod and took his leave, returning to duties of his own.

“Enter!” Minerva bade the woman.

The visitor who stepped silently across the threshold was a black woman with a slight build and dark hair arranged in neat rows of small plaits. Although her appearance was neat, there was an air of careful, threadbare frugality about her that struck Minerva as somehow familiar. She had an air of polite deference as well, a sense of stillness she carried with her.

The woman waited in the doorway for permission to approach further, and with a catch of her breath, Minerva knew what was familiar. Her unknown guest held herself so much like Remus Lupin had done. He’d been gone three years now, lost in the final battle of the war, and still Minerva could see him as if it were yesterday, standing before her desk in his meticulously patched clothes and quiet dignity.

And with that memory so freshly drawn before her mind’s eye, Minerva knew who this woman was.

“Please, sit down,” Minerva urged her guest. Even as she said it, she was rising and crossing the room to fetch a chair by hand, knowing her guest might be unused to seeing wand magic performed and not wanting to startle her.

Minerva set the chair in front of her desk and the woman perched lightly on its edge, placing herself carefully as if unused to this sort of furniture. As she returned to her own seat, Minerva observed how the woman glanced around, curious but cautious, rapidly taking in the portraits on the walls and the furnishings of the room. Minerva could tell her gaze missed nothing.

“Thank you for being willing to see me, Professor McGonagall,” the woman said. Her words, like her posture and her clothing, were perfectly correct and yet somehow marked by a slight hesitance, as if she were performing foreign cultural rituals she had studied in theory but rarely had the opportunity to try out for herself.

Wordlessly, the woman reached out and placed a small scroll, bound with a simple piece of white string, on Minerva’s desk, bowing her head as she did so. Then she lowered her hand to her side and looked up.

“My name is Serena,” she said. “At least, that is my name among humans.” Again, she gave a quick dip of her head. “I apologise for intruding on you. I’m not sure of the protocol for approaching the headmistress of a school. But this letter is addressed to you and when you’ve read it, Professor, I hope you’ll understand why it would have been difficult for me to reach you by owl or whatever the more usual channels may be.”

Minerva reached out one hand and touched the scroll, where it sat before her on the desk. She ran one finger along the length of the parchment, but did not yet unknot that bit of white string. The parchment was smooth but its edges were frayed, suggesting that though the scroll had been carefully kept, it had nonetheless seen the turn of a few seasons since it had last felt the touch of the hand that wrote it.

 _Remus Lupin,_ Minerva thought with a tightening in her chest where all her lost students lived. She could see him even now, with his band of fearless friends, those boys who’d caused Minerva no end of headaches. But those same boys had also been perfectly suited to the task of drawing Remus out of his own cautious nature: always polite, never complaining of his lot in life, no matter what pain and indignity his illness had caused him. He’d been so grateful, always, to be allowed to be at school at all.

“This letter is from Remus Lupin,” Minerva said to the woman in front of her, and it wasn’t at all a question.

The woman’s eyebrows lifted slightly in surprise, the first time she’d allowed a reaction to show in the careful politeness of her face.

“Yes,” the woman said. “We knew him by his werewolf name of Quiet, but that was his name among wizards, yes.”

Minerva nodded, and now she opened the scroll, working her fingers gently between the strands of a knot tied years before by the serious schoolboy who’d become the upstanding member of the Order of the Phoenix, who was now these three years dead.

_Dear Professor McGonagall,_

the parchment read,

_I am leaving this letter in the care of a woman whom I have come to call a friend during my time living with this werewolf pack. I write it in the hope that she may one day choose to approach you. Her name, among humans, is Serena, and if you are reading this letter then her daughter Joy – known to the pack by her werewolf name of River – is now eleven years old._

_Joy, at the time I knew her, was a clever, curious child, fascinated by the world around her, with a remarkable capacity for absorbing stories. That she has magical ability there is no doubt; I have watched her learning werewolves’ magic from the matriarch of the pack. That she would benefit enormously from a Hogwarts education I also have no doubt. She has too much intelligence and too much delight in learning to be denied the chance at schooling if she wishes it._

_Joy has spent most of her childhood within the pack, with few memories from her life before. It can be difficult to bridge two such separate worlds, but I fervently believe it is possible. I know Serena will do everything in her power to maintain her daughter’s connection to the pack and their way of life, even if she studies magic among witches and wizards. And I believe Hogwarts, too, is capable of educating a child while respecting the different world from which that child comes._

_It is not easy to accommodate a werewolf child at Hogwarts. I know this better than anyone. I realise I am asking you to go very much out of your way for the sake of a single child. But I also need hardly tell you that when Dumbledore took this same decision in my case, all those years ago, it changed everything for me._

_Minerva, it is an imposition and a tremendous favour I am asking of you, but I beg you to consider accepting Joy, also known as River, as a student at Hogwarts._

_Yours with deepest respect and fondness,_

_Remus Lupin_

Minerva found herself blinking rather rapidly as she laid the letter gently back down on her desk.

“Of course the child will attend Hogwarts,” she said. “How could there be any doubt?”

The woman sitting across from Minerva breathed in sharply, as if she had not dared to hope for this response. Minerva looked across the desk and met her eyes.

“Hogwarts is, and always has been, open to every magical child in the British Isles. How could I live with myself if I denied a child entrance because of circumstances beyond that child’s control? Besides,” she added firmly, “Remus Lupin was a student here, and a friend and an excellent teacher besides. If he says your daughter would benefit from a Hogwarts education, I trust his opinion implicitly.”

Serena lowered her eyes. For a moment Minerva thought she was being bashful and wondered why. Then she remembered Remus’ explanations of the hierarchy that operated within a werewolf pack: This woman viewed Minerva as a superior and thus was expressing respect and deference through her body language.

“She’s a very clever child,” Serena said softly but confidently, her eyes still downcast. “She learns quickly, and she loves to learn.” She paused briefly in the grip of some emotion, then went on: “I thought for a long time that I and the others of our pack could teach her everything she needs to know, and that our life should be enough for her. In many ways, Professor, I still believe that to be true. But if she wants to learn the magic of wizards… I love my child, but I won’t hold her back from the world.”

Serena’s eyes flashed up to meet Minerva’s, though she was clearly trying to keep them respectfully low. “How will it be for her at full moons here?” she asked. “Can you ensure her wellbeing, in a place where she is the only one of her kind?”

Minerva nodded briskly. Here, at least, she had clear and practical answers. “Modern potions-making has advanced a great deal since Remus was a student. Wolfsbane Potion is safe and reliable, and we’ll be able to supply River with it each month.”

Serena’s tone was wary. “I’ve heard of Wolfsbane Potion, but I’ve never taken it myself. What will it do to her?”

“It will allow River to keep…well, to keep her human mind, I suppose one would say, during the physical transformation. She will not be a danger to herself, nor to anyone else, and she will be able to spend the full moon night comfortably.”

“As a werewolf myself,” Serena began, and Minerva saw how she straightened up as she said it, “I can think of nothing worse than to be stuck in my human mind when my body wants to run free as a wolf. But I understand this is a necessary precaution for the safety of the other students, is that correct? Because they would be in danger of being perceived as prey by a wolf inhabiting her wolf mind.”

“Yes,” Minerva said, relieved that Serena understood. “And it would be for her own protection as well. I know from Remus that when a fully transformed werewolf is denied prey and the companionship of other werewolves, the experience is not a pleasant one.”

“No,” Serena agreed shortly, and Minerva wondered if Serena, too, had lived among humans and suffered as Remus had done, spending full moon nights locked up alone while her wolf-inhabited mind raged to be free. What a mercy Wolfsbane Potion was. It couldn’t stop the physical transformation, but at least it spared a werewolf the mental anguish that otherwise went with it.

“We shall arrange somewhere for her to transform within the castle,” Minerva assured her guest. “Somewhere safe and comfortable where she can pass the night until the transformation is over.”

To Minerva’s surprise, Serena burst out, “You would keep her indoors?” She was sitting straight as a wand and staring at Minerva, all her careful control and deference forgotten.

“Why, yes, of course,” Minerva said, perplexed. “It’s a matter of safety.”

“A wolf needs to be outdoors at the full moon,” Serena said, leaning forward, her voice low but urgent. “At the very least, she must be able to see the moon. It is terrible for us to be locked away from the natural world at the time when we most need to be immersed in it.”

“Believe me,” Minerva said, taken aback by the vehemence in Serena’s tone, “the last thing I would want is for the child to suffer. But I have a responsibility to all the children at the school. I can’t in good conscience allow a werewolf out of doors at the full moon, not even with Wolfsbane Potion.”

Serena’s breathing came harshly through her nostrils. She managed a tight nod.

As gently as she was able, Minerva said, “I cannot pretend to know what the experience is like. But I do know that with the potion, her mind will not be transformed, as it otherwise would be. In her mind, she will still be a girl passing a night much like any other. One of our teachers can keep her company, reading to her or telling her stories. Or she can simply sleep if she wishes.”

Serena had regained her control now and said, “I will discuss this with River. If it’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make, giving up her freedom at the full moons in exchange for the benefits of education, then that is her choice to make and I will not forbid it.”

Minerva nodded in acknowledgement. There was another uncomfortable point to be touched on, and she began delicately.

“If River indeed decides to attend Hogwarts, I think it would be best, at first, that she not tell anyone of her lycanthropy. Prejudice has decreased since the war, and I wish I could say it had vanished completely, but society is slow to change. It need not be a secret forever. But it might be wise at first, until she’s found her footing at school and has decided who she feels she can trust, that she be circumspect.”

She looked at Serena to see how she took this, and was glad that she did not seem offended by the suggestion.

“I agree,” Serena said, with another polite dip of her head. “People can be unkind, and there is no need to hand them a reason. I will speak with River.”

“There are a few other minor considerations,” Minerva added. “Each student must procure certain supplies before arriving at Hogwarts, books and robes and such. There’s a small fund that can cover the costs, if necessary, but River will still need to travel to Diagon Alley in person, especially in order to select a wand.”

“Diagon Alley,” Serena said softly, her rigid posture loosening. She seemed to grow smaller in her chair, as though she were retreating back into a younger version of herself. “Yes, I remember it.”

Minerva opened the drawer of her desk where this year’s Hogwarts Letter waited, ready to be subjected to a manifold duplication charm and sent out to all magical children in the British Isles now turned eleven.

Would the charm that sped the letters on their way have allowed one to find River, despite her lack of permanent address and a life spent learning werewolf, rather than wizard, magic? It ought to do so, yet the fact that no other werewolf child had turned up at Hogwarts in all these years suggested that it didn’t. Minerva added a note to her mental file to investigate how one might go about adjusting the ancient spell to seek out werewolf children as well.

For now, Minerva made a quick, single copy of the letter and the supplies list and handed them to Serena, who accepted both with a quick bowing of her head. Serena’s eyes scanned down the list, and she nodded slightly at each item.

“Yes,” she said. “I understand. I think we will be able to find these things.”

“Oh, no, you needn’t do it alone,” Minerva interjected hurriedly. “Someone from the school can accompany you when you go to Diagon Alley. That’s what we do for Muggle-born children, and there’s no reason we couldn’t do the same for River. I’ll send Hagrid to assist you, perhaps, or –”

And then Minerva had a marvellous idea.

“No,” she said slowly. “Not Hagrid, I don’t think, nor anyone else from the school. But I know just the person you should meet.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A little more backstory for anyone who wants it; fine to skip it if you don't!)
> 
> You’ll know the full backstory if you’ve read “[Raise Your Lantern High,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5417678/chapters/12517565)” but if you haven’t I think you can get by with knowing:
> 
> –In my imagining of HBP, the werewolves that Remus lived with were not aligned with Greyback; rather, they were a fiercely independent pack toughing it out in the wilds of the Scottish moorland, led by a strict but fair-minded Alpha who maintained staunch neutrality, wanting nothing to do with the “wizards’ war.” That position proved untenable, though, and growing tensions within the pack led to a split, with some defecting to join Greyback’s pack, but the remaining members establishing mutual loyalty with Remus, Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. (In my personal headcanon, some of these werewolves may have joined in the final battle against Voldemort at Hogwarts!) 
> 
> –Over the course of his year with the pack, Remus (who was given the werewolf name Quiet) formed a strong friendship with Serena (werewolf name: Trouble) and Joy (werewolf name: River; actually the daughter of Serena’s sister, but Serena adopted River after Greyback killed River’s mother and turned River into a werewolf). Embittered by the cruelty she experienced at the hands of wizards – including her own family – Serena wanted nothing to do with wizarding life, preferring the rich cultural history and strong bonds of interdependence among the werewolves, despite their life of adversity outside the bounds of wizarding society. Several times during his year with the pack, Remus broached the possibility of sending River to Hogwarts when she was old enough, so she could have a formal magical education as well as learning the oral traditions of the pack, but Serena would have none of it. Still, when he took his leave from the pack at the end of “Raise Your Lantern High,” Remus gave Serena a letter, addressed from him to Headmistress McGonagall, expressing support for River’s admission to Hogwarts, in case Serena ever changed her mind.


	2. A Stranger in Someone Else’s Home

Serena drew a slow breath in through her nose and looked at the door.

It was a simple wooden door, befitting this tidy little house in a sleepy village. It didn’t look like the home of a woman who had let her daughter marry a werewolf. It looked even less likely as the place where Quiet himself had spent the last months of the wizards’ war, along with his wife and their infant son.

But then, how many things ever looked like what they truly were?

Serena glanced down at River, standing by her side on the doorstep and fiddling unselfconsciously with one of her plaits. River was small for her age and a child of such a sunny disposition. You would never know to look at her that she also had a will of steel. River was determined to learn wizarding magic, as well as the ancient, wandless magic of the werewolf pack. It had been a fascination of hers since she’d first listened to Quiet’s stories when she was small.

Serena had always hated the idea. She hated the thought of relinquishing any werewolf child into the grasp of wizardkind, who had not always (rarely; almost never) proved kind to werewolves. Serena had fled that world and had no wish to return. No one but River, this child she loved more than her own life, could have brought her to where she was standing now.

But the desire for learning burned in River, more than any fears could quench. And Serena refused to be the one to extinguish that bright burning in her beautiful child.

River stood beside her now, patient but quietly eager, ready to meet this woman whom Professor Minerva McGonagall believed would be unprejudiced enough to guide them through the steps of readying River for Hogwarts.

The headmistress had said this woman, this Andromeda Tonks, would be understanding and kind. Serena was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, since the headmistress herself had been both of those things. But Serena had also experienced enough of wizards to know kindness was the exception, not the rule. Was any witch or wizard, on meeting a werewolf, capable of seeing beyond their own idea of who a werewolf was?

“This is the house, right, Mama?” River piped up from beside her. “You said the professor told you it would be the house with the grey trim around the edges, and that’s this one.”

“Yes, this is the house, Little One,” Serena agreed. “I was just gathering my courage a bit. Shall we knock?” 

“Can I do it?” River enthused. Everything was novel to her, here in the world of wizards. Unlike Serena, River had been so young when she became a werewolf that remembered hardly anything from her life before.

It was better that way.

Serena nodded her permission, so River reached out and rapped her knuckles smartly against the door’s wooden surface. Serena smiled at that, because River’s life so far had not had many doors in it, and no one had explained to her how to knock on them. She’d simply worked out on her own that her knuckles would make a louder sound against wood than her fingers or the flat of her hand.

The door swung open swiftly. The woman who stood inside it was tall and pale-skinned, with silvery hair swept up in an elegant knot. She had a sharp, intelligent face, with eyes, too, that were sharp and seemed to take in the whole of Serena and River at once.

“Welcome,” she said, and even in that first word her voice was rich and melodic. “I’m Andromeda. Minerva McGonagall was in touch by Floo to let me know to expect you. Please, come in.”

She stepped aside, holding the door open, and Serena and River crossed the threshold into the house.

“Come through to the kitchen, if you don’t mind,” the woman continued. “My grandson Teddy is just finishing breakfast.”

She gestured for them to walk ahead of her, down a hallway and into a small but brightly sunlit kitchen. The table there had four wooden chairs set neatly around it, one of which must have been magically augmented to bring its seat closer to the level of the table, where it accommodated a little boy who sat happily munching on a piece of toast spread with jam.

Serena would have recognised that child anywhere. Even with bright red hair that stood out from his head in exuberant tufts, even with his roundish child’s face, his eyes were exactly those of the werewolf Serena had known as Quiet.

“Teddy, love,” the silver-haired woman said, following Serena and River into the kitchen, “these are the friends I told you about, who’ve come to visit us for a bit so we can show them around and take them to Diagon Alley.”

“Hi!” the little boy said, turning in his chair to study the newcomers with frank curiosity, not the least bit shy, his toast still clutched in one sticky-fingered hand. Then, to Serena’s amazement, the boy gave a slow blink of his eyes and suddenly his hair was turquoise instead of red.

Serena must have made some small noise of surprise, because the woman – Andromeda – gave a small and slightly apologetic laugh and said, “I should have mentioned: Teddy is a Metamorphmagus, which means he can change his appearance at will. And very frequently does. His mother was the same,” she concluded with a catch in her voice.

His mother. Serena had met the mother of this child with the heart-shaped face and the colour-shifting hair. She was the woman Quiet had loved desperately and from afar all the time he was with their pack. The woman he’d returned to at last during the final year of the wizards’ war. Serena had met Nymphadora Tonks only briefly, but she’d found her to be one of the rare humans able to meet a werewolf with an open mind.

“Hi!” River said, in answer to Teddy’s greeting. She went over to him, equally unabashed, and asked, “What’re you having for breakfast? Toast?”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded emphatically, gazing up at River. Though she was small, River looked so grown up standing there next to a chubby-cheeked three-year-old child. Serena’s heart clenched, hard and fast, to see so clearly before her that her child really was leaving her for this wider world.

“I haven’t had toast in a really long time,” River confided to Teddy. “We make it sometimes over our campfire, you can hold it over the fire if you poke a stick through it, but we don’t have bread very often, really.”

“Want some?” Teddy thrust out his arm, offering his half-eaten, jam-smeared piece of toast.

“Oh, Teddy –” Andromeda interjected. “That’s very generous of you, thank you, but we can offer our guests their own whole pieces of toast, if they would like.” She glanced at Serena with a questioning look, as if she didn’t quite know what was appropriate to offer. “Are you hungry? I can provide something more substantial as well, if you would like.”

Serena’s first instinct was to decline politely, but she glanced at River’s wide-open, curious face and thought of all the wizarding customs she would have to get to know. Foods cooked in appliances and cauldrons instead of over open fires. Conventions about what was considered good manners while eating them. Chairs to sit on instead of rocks and logs. Cautiously she said, “Toast might be quite nice, actually, if you truly don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind. Here, let me just get Teddy tidied up first.” Andromeda turned efficiently to her grandson, Conjuring a wet cloth with her wand even as she moved, and wiped down his sticky face and hands.

Serena’s heart raced at the sudden unexpected sight, even though she had braced herself before coming here for the likelihood of seeing wand magic performed. When had she last seen a wand used? By Quiet, most likely. There was one time he had taken her and another member of the pack by Apparition to visit Hogsmeade. But Serena had never known any werewolf but Quiet to carry a wand. Werewolves had their own magic.

“Teddy,” Andromeda said, “why don’t you take River outside and show her the garden? You could show her your gnome house, too, and see if any of the gnomes are there today.”

“Gnome house!” Teddy echoed eagerly, wriggling down from his high chair. “River, you wanna see my gnome house?”

“Okay!” River agreed, after she’d cast a quick glance to Serena to make sure it was all right. She followed the little boy out of the kitchen, her head held high and fearless as always. If Serena had ever in her life been as confident and self-possessed as River was already at this age, she certainly didn’t remember it.

Andromeda opened what Serena assumed must be a breadbox and withdrew a loaf of bread. “Do you go by Serena?” she asked. “Or is there another name I should call you?”

“Serena is fine.” It had always seemed right to keep it that way, that humans could use her human name but pack names were only for the pack. From the day she’d finally been strong enough to break free from the cellar where her human parents chained her during full moons, no one had called her Serena again. No one, that is, until Quiet, who had sometimes slipped and called her that, unaccustomed as he was to werewolf names. It was the first time Serena hadn’t hated that human name, when Quiet said it.

“You have another name, I suppose, within your pack,” Andromeda said, as she deftly sliced several pieces of bread from the loaf. “But I won’t ask it, if that would be rude. I apologise, I’m not as familiar with this etiquette as I ought to be.”

Serena shook her head. “I don’t mind. It’s not secret, just…separate. My werewolf name is ‘Trouble’.”

It was hard to know how a human would respond to werewolf names, these names that often began as teasing in response to some incident or interaction early in one’s first days with a pack, but eventually one or another thing stuck and became a permanent name. The names felt personal and right, rooted as they were in shared history, but they doubtless sounded odd to human ears. Serena chanced a glance at Andromeda and found her smiling. It greatly softened the otherwise severe lines of her face.

“You don’t strike me as a ‘Trouble’, I must admit,” Andromeda said. “Though of course I don’t know you enough to be the judge of that.”

“I was much wilder before I had the responsibility for a child,” Serena admitted. 

“What a true statement,” Andromeda agreed wryly.

She opened a cupboard and fetched down a contraption Serena had never seen, the size of a middling river rock with a metallic body and two parallel slits in the top.

“A Muggle toaster,” Andromeda explained, seeing the direction of Serena’s gaze. “We keep a few oddities like this around, because my husband –” That catch came into her voice again, but she pushed on. “My husband was Muggle-born and he had a few Muggle conveniences he was fond of, despite being proficient at magic.” Her back had gone very straight.

“I’m so sorry for your losses,” Serena said softly. “Minerva McGonagall told me.” The headmistress had explained, before Serena left her office at the school: Andromeda Tonks had lost first her husband during the war, then her daughter and Quiet in the final battle at its end. All she had left was her grandson Teddy.

“Thank you.” Andromeda nodded curtly as she dropped the bread into the open slits in the metal box. But Serena recognised her demeanour. If she was curt, it was to keep despair at bay.

Andromeda’s wand was in her hand again and she waved it at the Muggle contraption, then waited for the charm to do its work.

“It’s an odd sort of hybrid solution, really,” she said, her voice composed once more. “Muggle technology, but it runs on magic.” Andromeda brushed a hand over her forehead as though waving away any stray wisps, although her hair was still perfectly in place. “What about your daughter?” she asked. “I assume she has two names as well. Which will she use at Hogwarts?”

“She does have a human name,” Serena confirmed. “But she was young when she came to us. For most of her life, she’s known herself only as River. Or River Run, really, her full name, after the course of the river we travelled along when I found her and brought her to the pack. But it will be her choice. Normally, a werewolf has two names, but she could be River everywhere, if she chose.” Serena felt that tightness again in her chest, in the very core of herself, at watching her child move beyond the reach of where Serena could protect her. “It’s not something I could ever imagine for myself, but perhaps she’ll be a werewolf who lives in both worlds and doesn’t feel the need to divide herself.”

“I hope that for her very much,” Andromeda said, and Serena looked at her, surprised by the intensity of her tone.

Just then the toasted bread popped up from the toaster, startlingly loud in the quiet room.

Andromeda moved the toast to a plate and inserted another two slices into the machine. “What is River’s other name?” she asked. “If you don’t mind the question.”

“Joy,” Serena said. “Her name among humans was Joy.”

Unlike her own human name, Serena could never bear any ill feeling towards River’s other name. It was the name Serena’s sister Irena had chosen for her daughter, before Irena was killed and Serena had come to take and raise her daughter. A werewolf raising a werewolf child, the girl who had been turned in the same attack that killed her mother. Her human name was one of the last threads River had of her lost human mother.

“That’s a lovely name,” Andromeda said. “But of course, so is River.” She set her wand carefully aside on the worktop, to wait for the toast to be ready.

It was quiet in the kitchen as they waited, and it was peaceful in that silence.

“Tell me, if you would,” Serena asked. She was thinking of River who had once been Joy, of Irena who had been torn so violently from her daughter, and of Quiet who had barely had a chance to know his child. And she realised she was not afraid of this stranger, Andromeda Tonks, this human woman who had also had a child torn away from her. “Tell me, what did you think of Quiet – of Remus – when you first met him? When you first knew he was a werewolf, what did you think of him?”

With the smallest of motions, little more than a gentle release of breath, Andromeda shifted back so she leaned against the worktop behind her.

“I knew Remus for a long time,” she said. “He was friends with my cousin Sirius from early in their time at Hogwarts. Sirius…he’s gone now, too. I didn’t know about Remus’ lycanthropy when they were young, and I didn’t know him well. He was just a kind and quiet boy who was friends with my cousin. Unfailingly polite, if perhaps a little too indulgent of Sirius’ wilder excesses. When I met him again, through Nymphadora –”

She sighed, a long exhale. Then she looked right at Serena, meeting her eyes unflinchingly.

“I wanted better for my daughter,” she said. “I hope you won’t think poorly of me for that, but if you do, I don’t blame you. My reservations weren’t _because_ Remus was a werewolf, although that’s still not an excuse. All I knew was that Remus couldn’t hold a job, because employers kept firing him as soon as they discovered his condition, so he was always poor, always looked half on the edge of starvation. That wasn’t his fault, not in the least, but it didn’t inspire confidence that the life Nymphadora could live with him would be a healthy or a stable one. And Remus himself was so guarded, so desperately afraid to let her love him.”

Serena thought of Quiet all that year he had lived with the pack, insisting there was no one and nothing for him back in the city he had left behind, despite the longing that always travelled with him in his eyes.

“But I was wrong,” Andromeda said, her voice firm. “I was _wrong_ , that’s the important thing. Lycanthropy wasn’t the problem. Remus’ fear was the problem, and it took time and hard work but he was learning to master it. He was still poor, he would always be somewhat sickly, but they were happy together, in what little time they had. And in the end, it was the war that took Nymphadora. It was always going to be the war that took her, because she wasn’t someone who could ever stand back from fighting for what was right –”

Andromeda’s voice broke then and her hand flew up to her throat, as if she would choke on the grief trying to claw its way out. Her eyes were wide as she fought for breath. One strand of hair broke free of its knot and flapped wildly, a tiny silver distress signal at her temple.

Serena had lived so long away from humans. She didn’t know what rules governed contact between them, what gestures were and were not allowed. But she couldn’t do nothing.

Tentatively, she reached one hand out and rested it on Andromeda’s shoulder.

Andromeda gave a last great gasp, shuddered, then found her normal breath again. Very briefly, she lifted her own hand and rested it on top of Serena’s, then let it fall again to her side.

“They’re gone,” she said softly. “But we go on. What else can we do?”

Into the quiet, the toast popped up from its Muggle contraption. Her movements carefully measured, Andromeda reached out to set it on the plate with the other slices. Then she fetched jam and butter and butter knives from a drawer, setting everything neatly on a wooden tray. 

Andromeda met Serena’s gaze with a smile, her eyes once again calm and kind, her demeanour once again that of the even-tempered hostess. She didn’t seem embarrassed by her brief outburst of emotion, only ready to move past it and go on. It was a choice she must have to make for herself every day, to keep going on.

But Serena wouldn’t forget, either, the glimpse she had seen of the pain that dwelled beneath the rest of who Andromeda was. She knew it was an honour she’d been given, to have been shown something so private and to be allowed to carry a little bit of it with her.

“We’d better go and make sure Teddy hasn’t torn the garden apart in the time he’s been out there,” Andromeda said. “Would you be so kind as to carry this tray, so I can fetch some pumpkin juice for the children as we pass by the pantry on our way out?”

Serena nodded and took up the tray. Then she followed her hostess out to the sunny back garden where River and Teddy were playing. Two children of lost parents, two stubborn harbingers of hope’s endless unfurling.

She could hear their laughter ringing out even before they stepped outside.

 


	3. A Day at Diagon Alley

“Look!” River cried and Andromeda looked, her eyes following as the girl’s arm pointed, encompassing all of Diagon Alley that stretched out in front of them.

River’s dark eyes were wide as they took in the vibrant chaos of the wizarding shopping street. Her hand held tightly to Andromeda’s, but Andromeda was fairly certain that was from excitement rather than fear. 

Serena had offered to stay and watch Teddy at the house while Andromeda took River for her school shopping. It had been the most expedient arrangement, of course, since it was Andromeda who had the familiarity with Diagon Alley that River needed; and a shopping expedition with Teddy, while always highly diverting, did tend to take several times longer than any shopping expedition without Teddy.

Andromeda also suspected, however, that Serena felt overwhelmed at the prospect of so many wizards in one place. But she did not pry. Serena’s reasons were her own, to keep her own counsel about. That she trusted Andromeda with her daughter, that was more than confidence enough.

And so Andromeda and River stood at the mouth of Diagon Alley, the brick wall at the back of the Leaky Cauldron whirling shut behind them. Before them, owls fluttered and took flight from awnings, copper cauldrons teetered in a precarious stack displayed on the pavement, and witches and wizards in robes and high hats hastened to and fro, while sparkling silver letters scrawled out _discounted newt eyes, today only_ across the nearest shop window, disappeared, then began anew.

“The _colours,_ ” River breathed, tugging eagerly on Andromeda’s hand. “What are the names for them all? I’ve never seen that one – or that – or that –” Her free arm waved wildly, pointing at a passing witch’s magenta robes, at the gleaming copper of the cauldrons, at the phials of chartreuse potion that bubbled in the apothecary’s window.

Andromeda thought of the muted palette of browns and tans and greens, with perhaps the addition of the purple of heather in late summer, that made up the moorland where River had lived most of her life, surviving in the wild with her pack of werewolves, and she patiently gave names to each of the colours at which River pointed.

A post owl, large and tawny with a letter tied to its left leg, swooped particularly low over their heads as it passed, and River gasped in surprise, then laughed aloud in delight.

“Did you see it?” she cried, spinning on the spot and craning her neck up to watch the owl as it winged away. “I never saw an owl so close before. Quiet told me owls fly around all the time in wizard cities, but I didn’t know they were so pretty!” 

Andromeda, though not usually given to impulse, said quickly, almost rashly, “You’re allowed to bring one pet with you to Hogwarts. After we have your robes and books, shall we stop at Eeylops Owl Emporium and see if you find an owl you like?”

But River shook her head, suddenly once again the wise, earnest child who emerged so often from behind those eager eyes. 

“No, ma’am, but thank you all the same,” she said politely. “I would love to have an owl as a pet, but I don’t think the owl would love me at the times when I’m a wolf, and that doesn’t seem fair to the owl, I don’t think.”   

Andromeda hurt for this child who had learned so young – like Remus, so very much like Remus – to measure the answer to any question first against her lycanthropy.

River, though, had already moved past that disappointment and was skipping forward, pulling on Andromeda’s hand. “The cauldrons in that shop, are they for brewing potions? Like in a potions class? Quiet told me lots of stories about potions classes, and all the magical things potions can do, potions to make people happy, potions to keep people healthy, potions to make people look like somebody else! Do I get to take a potions class? Is there a cauldron on my list, Andromeda, ma’am?”

Once she’d sorted through this rapid-fire delivery, Andromeda delved into the pocket of her outer robe and withdrew the list of required items for first-year Hogwarts students that Minerva McGonagall had provided. Andromeda could not help the painful nostalgia that gripped her heart as she unfurled the parchment and scanned the list, for little on it had changed since she’d undertaken this same shopping expedition with Nymphadora seventeen years before.

Nymphadora had been similarly bubbling with excitement, similarly thrilled at the prospect of all that awaited her at Hogwarts. They’d come to Diagon Alley just like this on a similarly mild late summer day, and Nymphadora had chattered away to her parents about all the magic she would learn and all the friends she would make. 

As she had done. She had absolutely done all that she’d dreamed and so much more, and Andromeda had been terribly, fiercely proud of her brilliant and fearless daughter.

Carefully clearing that surge of emotion from her voice before she spoke, Andromeda told River, “It says here you’ll need robes, a hat, gloves, a cloak, various books for each of your classes, a wand, a cauldron, glass phials, brass scales, and a telescope. Where would you like to begin?”

River’s eyes were shining as she looked up at Andromeda. “My wand, maybe? Could we go and get a wand?”

Andromeda nodded briskly. “Of course.”

Traversing the cobbled stones with River, Andromeda felt as if she, too, were seeing Diagon Alley with new eyes. She couldn’t remember the first time she’d come here. As a pureblood witch, she had considered her familiarity with the centres of British wizarding life her birthright. Even later, as a teenager who ought to have known better, she’d pitied the poor Muggle-born children who hadn’t grown up already knowing precisely which brick to tap in the wall behind the Leaky Cauldron, which shops had the cleanest Floo connections and which locations along the street were ideal for Apparition. How sad for them, she’d thought, and how embarrassing, not to simply _know_ it all already.

It was Ted who’d shown her another view. Ted with his puppyish joy, even into adulthood, each time he’d discovered some new facet of the magical world he hadn’t known before. These days, Andromeda couldn’t help but think it was the Muggle-born children who were the lucky ones, getting to walk into Diagon Alley and be dazzled for the first time.  

Well, or children like River, or for that matter Harry, who were born to magical families but nonetheless for one reason or another had done most of their growing up far from wizarding society. 

They stopped in front of Ollivander’s and River stared up at the shop’s sign, awed. From the outside the place didn’t look particularly impressive, nothing to be seen but a few wands displayed in the dusty windows, but River seemed to sense the magical potential within.

“Until now, I never saw anybody but Quiet use a wand,” she said, still gazing up at the sign over the door: _Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C_. “Not that I can remember, I mean. I suppose I must have seen some wand magic when I was a little kid, but I don’t remember that.”

This much Andromeda had gathered from Serena: River’s parents had been a witch and wizard. River’s mother had somehow incurred the wrath of Fenrir Greyback. Again, like Remus, too terribly much like Remus. But in this family’s case, when Greyback attacked, he had killed the mother and turned her young daughter: River.

The father, horrified, had tried to hide his werewolf daughter from society. When Serena heard – Serena, the mother’s sister, who had also been a werewolf since childhood but had escaped from her own cruel and frightened family – she came and took River away from her father, to raise her in the strict but loving hierarchy of a werewolf pack living on the Scottish moors, far from Greyback and his cruelty.

“How old were you when you went to live with your pack?” Andromeda asked.

River scrunched up her nose. “Maybe…five? I’m sorry, Andromeda, ma’am, I don’t know exactly. Quiet asked me how old I was, too, when he joined our pack, but we don’t count year age so much, like humans do. We keep measure of things by the seasons, and the seasons are a circle that goes on and on. Mama says I’m eleven now, and that she kept track because she knew I might want to go to Hogwarts and that’s when Hogwarts starts, so I guess that must be right. I kind of like that, since I never knew my age before. I’m eleven!” She looked up at Andromeda and grinned.

Giving in to impulse, Andromeda reached out and took the girl’s hand. “Shall we go inside?”

Garrick Ollivander no longer greeted his customers himself. As one effect of his ordeal in the war, the elderly wandmaker had finally given in to the necessity of taking on apprentices. He lurked in the background of the dimly lit shop now, tending his wandmaking workbench while an eager young assistant greeted Andromeda and River at the door. But Andromeda saw Ollivander’s luminous eyes following them as the apprentice drew the usual wide selection of possible wands down from the shelves. 

When River found the wand that would be hers, all four of them knew it instantly – Andromeda, Ollivander, the assistant and River herself. Ollivander darted forward out of his gloomy corner, muttering, “Yes, yes, beechwood. Indeed.”

But River had eyes for nothing but her new wand. She gazed up at the silvery cloud of vapour that had billowed out of the wand when she’d waved it. It looked rather like a non-corporeal Patronus. River’s head swung towards Andromeda, the rest of her body still poised in perfect stillness, as if she were afraid of disturbing the cloud of vapour that hung above her.

“I did that?” she whispered.

“You did,” Andromeda confirmed. “How did it feel?”

“It felt…it felt…like _magic_. Like the charms we cast around our camp to protect us, and the way we run under the full moon, and –” She broke off, the awe overwhelming her.

With a gentle shushing sound, the silvery vapour dissipated into the air and River, with a sigh, let her wand arm fall.

“It felt like it was _right_ ,” she concluded.

“Indeed, indeed,” murmured Ollivander, sidling up to River, peering at her with his large eyes. “Beechwood, ten and a half inches, a strong and subtle wand for a witch wise beyond her years, hm?”

River stared up at him. “I – I don’t know, sir.”

But Ollivander didn’t seem to require an answer. He was retreating already, back the murky depths of his workshop, waving a hand at his assistant to box up the wand for River.

Back out amidst the bustle of Diagon Alley, River hugged the wand box to her chest as they walked. Andromeda wondered if River could still feel warmth from the wand, a lingering trace of the spark she must have felt when her hand touched it for the first time. What Andromeda could see without a doubt was that the girl couldn’t stop smiling.

They passed a broom shop on their way to collect the next items from the school list, which led to Andromeda offering an impromptu explanation of Quidditch. River studied the brooms in the window in minute detail and declared them beautiful, her eyes dancing at the thought of a sport played swooping through the air on broomsticks, and Andromeda decided that Ginny and Harry were next on the list of people River must be introduced to.

They bought books and classroom supplies: cauldron, telescope, phials, and scales. There was gold enough to cover their purchases; McGonagall had been very clear on this point. Hogwarts did have funds that could be made available to cover the expenses of students in unusual circumstances such as River’s, and Serena was not to pay a Knut out of pocket.

“Now, your robes,” Andromeda said, consulting the list once again as a gust of wind swept around them. It swirled Andromeda’s own robes about her ankles, a hint of the autumnal weather to come.

River’s current clothing was adequate in terms of warmth, but it was a bit threadbare and certainly much patched. It would be good for her to have new robes in Hogwarts’ uniform black, clothing that would help to signal to the other children that River was, ultimately, more similar to them than she was different.

Their way to Madam Malkin’s shop took them past Gringotts. At the sight of it, River stopped short on the pavement and stared, stunned into stillness by the grand white building with its marble columns and burnished bronzed doors, a goblin in uniform standing guard on either side.

“Is that a school, too?” River whispered to Andromeda. It seemed that to her mind, a school was the grandest kind of place there was and a building this impressive must surely be one.

A woman just then passing them, heading in the other direction, stopped at that and scoffed, staring down her nose at River. She wasn’t anyone Andromeda recognised, though something about the upturned tilt of her nose suggested a Rosier.

“A _school_?” the woman mimicked. “Fancy that, a child your age not even knowing Gringotts. Can’t you recognise a bank by the goblins scurrying in and out?” She clucked to herself, as she turned to walk away, “Honestly, the types they let into Diagon Alley these days!”

Andromeda felt her blood rising to a boil. She’d left her pure-blood family’s world to escape just that kind of talk. She’d lost her husband, lost her daughter, in the war, and still there were witches and wizards walking about in Diagon Alley who would _dare_ to tell a mere child she was the wrong “type”?

Andromeda opened her mouth to unleash a vengeful defence of River’s inalienable right to stand precisely where she stood – but River was faster.

The girl pulled herself up to her full, though small, height and said in a clear voice, “Excuse me, ma’am. Before you go.”

The woman’s step jerked in surprise, and she half-turned back towards River.

River’s voice rang out clearly. “This is my first day here in Diagon Alley, ma’am, so I’m not sure how you expected me to know it was a bank when I hadn’t seen one before. I was raised to be respectful to my elders, so I won’t say anything more about how rudely you spoke just now. But it seems to me that if you wanted me to know it was a bank, there are much nicer ways you could have said so. Still, I’m grateful for the information, because I do love to learn new things. Good day, ma’am, I hope you enjoy your afternoon.”

Without waiting for an answer, she slipped one hand through Andromeda’s arm, which hung momentarily limp at her side with astonishment, then River tugged Andromeda on along the cobbled street in the direction they had been heading, towards Madam Malkin’s.

They didn’t speak at first as they walked. Andromeda stared down, still stunned, at her small companion. She had a sudden, vivid, and indisputably true image of how River was going to thrive at Hogwarts. The friends she would make, the successes she would achieve. The poise with which she would dispel doubts about her unusual past and uncharted future.

River was going to be extraordinary.

The girl glanced up at Andromeda, seemingly as unperturbed by the encounter in front of Gringotts as Andromeda had been shaken by it. “Andromeda, ma’am?” she asked. “We’re going to get robes now, right?”

Andromeda looked down at River. Then she shook her head. “Not just yet. Let’s make one other stop first.”

Andromeda turned them around, walking back the way they had come. Past Gringotts, past Flourish & Blott’s, past the shop where they’d bought River’s telescope and phials and scales. River looked puzzled, but was too polite to ask why they were retracing their steps.

When they reached the broom shop, where River had so admired the racing brooms, Andromeda stopped.

Here was a child from whom life had taken so much. Her mother, her father, her chance at an uncomplicated childhood. She couldn’t even choose a pet to bring along to school like any other incoming Hogwarts student, because her lycanthropy rendered even that decision fraught.

“We’ve got all your school things, but I haven’t bought you a single thing myself, as a gift, not as a necessity for school,” Andromeda said firmly. “So pick the broom you like best, and that’s the one we’ll get. They used to have a rule not allowing first-years to bring brooms, and they may have that rule still. But we’ll visit the Weasleys sometime soon and Ginny and her brothers will teach you how to play Quidditch, or Harry will, and you can leave your broom with them for a while if you’re not allowed to keep it at school just yet.”

River stared up at Andromeda, her wide eyes wider than Andromeda had seen them yet. “You…you want to buy me a broom for Quidditch, ma’am?”

“Yes,” Andromeda said, struggling between a desire to smile rather more widely than made sense and a need to wipe away a prickling in her eyes. “I would very much like to have the privilege of buying you your first broom. Would you allow me that honour, River?”

Eyes still wide and fixed on Andromeda, River slowly nodded. Then she slipped her hand into Andromeda’s and Andromeda squeezed it. They turned, and entered the Quidditch shop side by side.

 


	4. The Most Amazing Place

Hogwarts was _amazing_.

Mama had told River some things about the school, the little bit she knew about it: that it was a place for learning wizard magic; that it was a big, beautiful building; that almost every magical child in the whole country went there.

And Quiet, when he'd lived with them in the pack, had told River stories about when he was a student at Hogwarts. He'd tried at first to pretend they were stories of some other boy, that it wasn't _him_ who'd got up to all kinds of trouble and adventures with his friends, but River could always tell when the stories were really about him.

But neither of them had prepared her for how Hogwarts was so completely _amazing_.

They travelled there first inside a powerful steam-driven train, then over a beautiful lake in little boats all lit up with lanterns, guided by an enormous man who kept saying, "All righ', firs'-years, all righ'?" and grinning like the sight of new students arriving at the school made him the happiest he could possibly be.

And then, and _then_ , rising out of the rocks at the far side of the lake, framed by the mountains and the dimming sky: there was the castle.

Mama had tried to explain how it was so big it was almost like its own whole city, but Hogwarts was a place even Mama couldn't explain with words. River laughed now to think she'd seen that big white bank in Diagon Alley and imagined it might be a school. The school was a thousand times as marvellous as a bank!

There were staircases that moved and high towers that reached way up into the sky and long corridors begging to be explored and adults whose entire job it was to teach the children magic.

And there were so, so, so many children. River had spent most of her life as the only child in her pack and that was fine, she'd always loved having so many grown-ups around to tell her stories. But now she looked around, in the great hall where they all stood waiting their turn to try on a hat that would tell them which of the school's four houses to join, and she saw the many other students and wondered with an excited flutter in her stomach what it might be like to have so many friends her own age.

First, though, came her turn under the Sorting Hat.

River sat on the stool where Headmistress McGonagall had pointed and felt the Hat's weight settle down over her ears. It was an ancient Hat. You could feel that about an object, when it was really, really old and had ages of wisdom stored up inside.

 _Hm, yes_ , said the Hat softly in River's ear. _A tricky one! A challenge! I see a great deal of bravery, oh yes. But, too, there is no doubt you are wise beyond your years. Where shall I put you, little werewolf? What will you need more, to nurture the courage you possess, in order to navigate the difficulties you're sure to face in coming years, or to train your brain to outthink your opponents?_

 _With all due respect, Mr Hat_ , River thought, because the Sorting Hat seemed like a thing you should think to rather than talk to, _I'm here to learn. I don't care about outthinking or out bravery-ing anybody. I just want to learn lots and lots, as much as I possibly can._

 _Is that so?_ asked the Hat, and it sounded kind of like it chuckled, if a Hat could chuckle. Then it shouted very loudly, "RAVENCLAW!"

A whole segment of the room erupted in cheers and River stumbled up off the stool, a little dazed. She handed the Hat to the next first-year and ran to join her new House. Ravenclaw. Even the name was beautiful, like a silvery night of running under the moon.

Next there was food, so much food, and River got lost in it for a while, because she'd never seen so much to eat. Life was scrabbling to find food and never having quite enough and stretching what there was just a little bit so it would last until the next chance to hunt or scavenge, surely everyone knew that was simply how it was, and yet here were platter upon platter piled high with mouth-watering roasts and vegetable pies with crusts that flaked apart and potatoes roasted until they were golden and great tureens of steaming soup. And then when even River thought she couldn't eat any more, those dishes disappeared and were replaced by dainty plates of puddings and tarts and custards.

As the meal drew to a close, the din of chatter among the students grew. The boy on River's left – he was called Justinian, River remembered from the Sorting, though she couldn't remember the rest of his name except that it had been quite long and complicated – turned to her and said, "So what about you, then? Where are you from?"

River frowned, trying to remember how humans expected her to answer this question. Her pack was her most important allegiance, but people here didn't care about packs, Mama had said. And Ms Andromeda had said people mostly came from cities or towns, but River didn't come from a city or town, so she couldn't say one of those, either. Scotland! That's right, her pack lived in Scotland. Scotland was a country, which was like a city, but larger. She could say that.

"Scotland," River said, and gave a friendly smile to make up for it in case her answer was not quite right.

"Oh, yeah? Brilliant! I think it's excellent Hogwarts is here in Scotland. This is only my second time here. First was when my family did a holiday in the Hebrides last year, touring cursed castles and all that. I found a real mummified hand and Father said it was almost definitely from the Middle Ages. What part of Scotland are you from?" Justinian rested his elbows on the table and turned all the way to River, looking interested.

"Er…" It wasn't something she'd ever really thought about. The pack was the pack and the land was the land, and they moved around when they needed to, in search of food or fleeing danger when humans discovered their presence. Names of places didn't mean nearly as much as the changing of the seasons did, the signs in nature that said it was time to build a winter shelter or celebrate the rebirth of the world in spring. "We live on a moor, I suppose? On sort of a flat part of the land, where rabbits run and there are little stands of trees to shelter under and sometimes in spring the streams turn into rushing rivers."

Justinian's forehead crinkled up like he was trying to understand. "And you have, what, a cottage or something? Or, like, a country house?"

"No, we just…live on the moor."

Justinian stared at her, the last spoonfuls of berry trifle on his plate forgotten. "You live _outdoors_?"

"Yes…?" Mama had warned her there would be a lot of differences at first, and that it might take some time to figure out which things about River's life that seemed obvious to her would be the things that unexpectedly made the others confused or surprised. But this was the thing that was going to be surprising, that she lived outdoors, close to nature? Who wouldn't want to do that?

"You live outdoors, wow! That's wicked!"

River bristled. "Wicked like bad?"

Justinian burst out laughing and shoved River with his shoulder. "No, you goose, wicked like supremely excellent! Ooh, you are so lucky! Can I visit you at home during the school holidays sometime?"

River tried to picture a human kid visiting her pack's encampment, among their cosy stand of evergreen trees on the moor. Would he even be able to find the place, with all the werewolf magic that protected it, the spells woven around the camp to keep unwanted humans out?

"Yeah, maybe," she said, fighting back a grin. "I'd have to ask my grandfather, though."

River didn't have a grandfather, of course. What she had was the Alpha of her whole pack, which was so much more than a grandfather. But she and Mama had talked about words she could use when she talked about her life so humans would understand. It was like keeping all her important people close to her but putting them in fancy disguises, and River kind of liked that.

She didn't talk any more to Justinian just then, though, because at the teachers' table at the front of the hall Headmistress McGonagall stood and cleared her throat and started making announcements about the start of the term, and River turned rapt attention to this woman who was like the Alpha of this entire greater-than-a-pack, greater-than-a-bank, greater-than-a-city school of Hogwarts.

Prefects rounded up the new students and led them to bed soon after that, but River got a chance to meet Headmistress McGonagall in person the very next day.

She slept the night in Ravenclaw Tower in a bed. (A bed! There'd also been a bed at Ms Andromeda's house, and probably also way, way back in the past before River became a werewolf and joined the pack, but surely there had never in the world been a bed as nice as this one, with its fluffy soft pillows and the blue and bronze curtains that draped dreamily around its sides.) Even though she slept so comfortably, River woke up early in her eagerness to experience more of Hogwarts, and went down to the big round common room to sit in one of the window seats and gaze out over the school grounds. She'd never looked at the world from so high up and it seemed to go on forever, the lake and the forest and the mountains.

One of the Ravenclaw prefects found her there – prefects were like half-adults, who helped the adults with running the school – and told her that Headmistress McGonagall would like to see River in her office right away. River vibrated with anticipation all the way there as she followed the prefect, an Asian girl who looked a little like Ashmita from River's pack but younger and much taller. They went up and down corridors, until the prefect suddenly stopped.

"Thistle," the prefect said to a nearby stone gargoyle and the gargoyle jumped aside. River jumped too, in surprise. The wall behind the gargoyle opened and behind it was another moving staircase, this one going upwards in a spiral.

River followed the prefect onto the stairs and they rose towards the headmistress' office, River clutching her hands to her heart with excitement to be in a place where girls talked to stone, and stairs could make you feel like you were flying. Today, the first day of classes, she was finally going to learn how to use the brand-new wand that was carefully tucked inside the sleeve of her robe.

The prefect deposited River at the door to the office with a nod and a polite, "Professor McGonagall, ma'am," and then River was alone with the headmistress.

"Come in, Miss Ash," Headmistress McGonagall said.

It took River a moment to remember that that meant her. She did know her human name and also that it had two parts: Joy Ash. But River never used those names, because who needed so many?

She didn't dislike her human name, though. It was something she'd been given by her first mother, the one who'd died when River was small.

River stepped into the office and then tried not to stare, because there were portraits everywhere. She'd seen moving paintings already in other parts of the castle, and had nice chats with a few of them, but here portraits covered nearly every bit of the walls. They were mostly old-looking witches and wizards, and they were all looking at River with great interest.

"Sit down, Miss Ash," Headmistress McGonagall said, so River went to the chair that faced the headmistress' desk, sat up straight and waited to be told what to do next.

The headmistress' face was stern but her eyes were kind, River decided. She didn't look anything like the Alpha of River's pack, who was strict but fair, and sometimes fierce when he needed to be. But of course River knew that not all Alphas were the same.

Headmistress McGonagall fixed her gaze on River. "How has your first day at school been so far, Miss Ash?"

"Wonderful!" River cried. She was trying to be very polite and proper, because she was speaking to the _headmistress_ , but her excitement burst out anyway. "Hogwarts is so amazing, ma'am. It's the best place I've ever been. I thought at first that maybe Diagon Alley was the best place, but it's definitely Hogwarts."

Headmistress McGonagall smiled like the smile had been surprised out of her. "You're settling in all right, then?"

"Oh, yes, Headmistress ma'am. Everyone is very, very kind."

"I'm glad to hear that." Then she sighed. "I had hoped to allow you a little more time to settle in before calling you in for a one-to-one conversation about the particulars of your condition, but it's come to my attention that it might be wise to discuss this now."

It took River a moment to understand all that, but then she got it. The headmistress wanted to discuss her being a werewolf at a non-werewolf school. She nodded.

"You know that I met with your mother before the school year started to discuss your attendance at Hogwarts," the headmistress said, and for a moment River felt dizzy. Usually if anyone said _mother_ instead of _mama_ , they meant the first one, the one who'd died, not Mama who'd rescued her and brought her to live with the pack.

But no, Headmistress McGonagall meant Mama. She'd talked to Mama about River coming to learn magic at Hogwarts.

"Yes, ma'am," River said.

"We discussed that it would be for the best that you not tell anyone, at first, about your lycanthropy."

"Indeed!" exclaimed one of the portraits behind the headmistress, a plump woman in scarlet robes.

"A scandal!" cried a dark-haired man in another picture frame, wearing a green robe. "The whole thing would never have been allowed in my day."

Headmistress McGonagall pursed her lips and looked like she was barely supressing an urge to roll her eyes, which wasn't something River would have thought headmistresses did.

" _Not_ because you have anything to be ashamed of," McGonagall said. "But for your safety, your mother and I agreed it would be best to be cautious. Even now, although the laws have improved, many long-existing prejudices linger. It can be hard to know how people will react to meeting a werewolf."

River was confused. "I haven't told anyone I'm a werewolf, though, ma'am. Mama told me not to and I wouldn't disobey Mama."

In a surprisingly gentle voice, Headmistress McGonagall said, "Last night at dinner, a teacher overheard part of your conversation with another student. Did you tell a boy in your house that your family live outdoors on the moor?"

"Yes, ma'am," River said, still confused. "I told him that because it's true. But I didn't tell him we're werewolves."

Still in that strangely gentle voice, the headmistress said, "Most witches and wizards don't live out of doors. They live in houses, perhaps in manors or castles, but living outdoors is…quite unusual. The boy you spoke with last night may not have made any connection based on what you told him, but if rumours begin to spread, someone else might do so. I hate to ask you to be so cautious in speaking to your peers, truly I do, but I very much want your years at Hogwarts to be a safe and happy time. If you could be more cautious in what you reveal of your home life, it would make that goal easier."

River's throat was getting tight and hot. It was hard to squeak the words out. "You want me to tell _lies_ , ma'am?"

Looking unhappy, Headmistress McGonagall said, "Not lie, necessarily, although you do have my permission to tell unavoidable untruths within these school walls if it will keep you safe. But perhaps you would be willing to consider what might be called lies of omission: not lying, but simply not revealing the truth." The look she gave River was so sad, like all the weight of the world rested in the lines of her aged face. "I'm sorry, Miss Ash. But when you've lived as long as I have, when you've seen the horrors I have –"

River was standing, even though she didn't remember getting to her feet. Her whole body was cringing at the wrongness of standing up to an elder, let alone an _Alpha_. If she were at home she would get bitten on the back of her neck for this for sure, but she was tingling with anger and she couldn't stop.

"I'm not sorry about being a werewolf!" she said. "I'm not – what's the word you said – I'm not ashamed! I'm a werewolf and it's the best thing about me! I run with the moon and I live with a pack and I respect my elders – I mean, almost always I do – and I honour the Mother our Earth and all the seasons that give us life and the Beltane fire and Samhain night when our loved spirits return and those are the best parts of me! I won't hide them if somebody asks! And when Justinian asked and I told him we live on the moor, he thought it was really _cool_!" Now River was crying, hot tears running down her face, and she didn't know why.

"Oh – child –" Headmistress McGonagall said. She looked stricken, and for a moment she sat there stiff and straight behind her desk like she didn't know what to do.

Then she rose from her chair. She hesitated another moment, then she came around from behind her desk and knelt carefully in front of River. It put them more or less eye to eye, the tall woman and the smallish girl.

"You're right," the headmistress said, from where she knelt directly before River. "You have no cause to be ashamed. Never let anyone make you think that."

Then, very strange: the headmistress dropped her eyes.

She didn't do it by mistake. It was only for a moment, but there was no question that the headmistress lowered her gaze carefully to the floor, the same way somebody of low status would do for someone higher. Which meant that all of a sudden River was standing there and her teacher was the one in front of her with her eyes cast down. It surprised River so much, she stopped crying and dropped back into her chair in confusion. Because that wasn't supposed to happen ever, that her elder was kneeling in front of her and looking down.

But then she thought of Quiet.

Mama had said River shouldn't expect humans to know anything about werewolves; she should expect confusions and misunderstandings because there were so many things they wouldn't know about her, or she about them. But Quiet had obviously explained some things to Headmistress McGonagall. The headmistress knew about the language the eyes and the body used, the language that went beyond words, and she was trying to help River feel better that way, by apologising with her eyes. Even if the thing she was doing wasn't something a real Alpha would ever do.

River stared at the Headmistress, feeling awe that a human grown-up would try so hard like that, even as her own heart was still thumping in confusion. Her stomach, too, was churning as if it had just realised for the first time how far away home was, the moor with its fresh scents of wind and gorse and running water.

Headmistress McGonagall stood again. But she perched on the edge of her desk, instead of going back around to her seat on the other side of it. River rubbed away the tears from her cheeks.

The headmistress' voice sounded throaty when she spoke again. "My apologies for upsetting you so, Miss Ash. You must forgive me if I don't always get this right on the first try. I've been a teacher a long time, but I have little experience with lives like yours."

River blinked up at her, not sure what she was supposed to say.

"You know that Remus Lupin was a student of mine as well?" the headmistress asked.

River nodded. She remembered snuggling in Quiet's lap on lazy mornings, when all the adults of the pack were tired after a full moon and he was the only one willing to amuse her with stories about Potions class mishaps and late-night adventures. "Yes, ma'am," she said.

"Life was hard for him. Even here at Hogwarts, where he had friends and relative safety. We on the staff did all we could for him, but it was very hard. I don't wish to see that same story repeat." She gazed over River's head, not seeming to see the room they were in at all. "But times have changed," the headmistress said softly. "Perhaps it is I who am behind the times."

Again, River didn't know what she was expected to say to that, so she nodded.

Headmistress McGonagall blinked, then snapped her gaze back to River. "I am not forbidding you anything, Miss Ash," she said. "I ask only that you exercise caution. Think before you speak. Decide case by case whether the person to whom you speak is a person whom you feel you can trust. To be clear, that would be my advice to any young person learning her or his way in the world. You face your own particular challenges, but so do we all."

Suddenly she smiled, an expression that looked so surprising each time it appeared on her stern face that River blinked.

"We'll need to meet again in a week or so to discuss arrangements for the full moon and for you to begin taking Wolfsbane Potion, which our school potions master will brew for you. But until that time, I wish you well in your first days of classes and in getting acquainted with your illustrious house. I will trust in your good judgement, Miss Ash."

"Thank you, ma'am," River said. She stood, understanding that the headmistress had dismissed her. Yes, the body language was different here – the Alpha of her pack would have turned away to show their conversation was over, where Headmistress McGonagall nodded and kept looking at her – but River understood that the headmistress had said what she had to say, and now River should leave to get ready for her first Hogwarts lesson.

Strange: even though River had got angry and loud, which she shouldn't have done, the headmistress had been so gentle. River felt even more admiration for her than before.

"Thank you," she said again, almost whispering it.

Headmistress McGonagall didn't smile again, but she nodded. "Very well, Miss Ash. Good luck in class. You have double Potions first, I believe. Hurry along and collect your books and cauldron in time for breakfast."

Potions! River dashed to the door in a swirl of delight, and only remembered just in time to stop in the doorway and turn back, bowing her head to show deference to her elder before she left the room.

When she straightened, she thought she saw a trace of amusement slip across the headmistress' face, before she quickly straightened her features. Did humans not bow to their elders? River would have to ask someone. There were so many things she still had to learn!

She couldn't wait to learn all of them.

River turned from doorway and dashed two at a time down the spiral staircase that descended from the headmistress' office, ready to start her day.

 

**~The End~**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special bonus fact: This story is written “La Ronde” style, meaning the first chapter is a scene between Character A and Character B, then the next chapter has Character B continue on into an interaction with Character C, and so on until the final chapter brings the last character full circle back to the original Character A. Hence my initial working title, La Ronde du Petit Loup-Garou (“La Ronde” of the little werewolf). In the end I changed it, though, to match the rest of the Be the Light in My Lantern/Raise Your Lantern High series.


End file.
